Space, science and tech geeks say: "Donald Trump is Not Who We Are"

As a concerned engineering student, I invite all scientists, engineers, developers, space advocates and enthusiasts, to stand together against the racial, religious and other intolerance that Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric promotes. It is putting women, Muslims, Latinos, those with disabilities, and other people directly at risk.

There is no place for this kind of discrimination, hate and violence in America and the rest of the world.

As a community, we affirm the values that make us who we are: diversity, openness and compassion.

Join me in saying: Donald Trump is not who America or the world is, and he is not who we are in the ongoing pursuit for quest for space exploration, science and technology.

Why is this important?

Donald Trump said he thinks NASA is wonderful, and that America has always led the world in space exploration for nearly 60 years.

However, Trump has shown he is incapable of showing space the love. In a New Hampshire town hall meeting last November, he said NASA was great in the old days, and there are bigger problems that NASA has to fix its potholes. In a May 2016 issue of Aerospace America, he responded to a question about NASA funding with his first priority being to restore a strong economic base to the country before having a discussion about spending.

When it comes to science, technology and innovation, both of which nowadays play a crucial role in space exploration, Donald Trump has largely been silent. Every time he has spoken about the tech industry, his comments have sometimes been critical. This also applies to science as well, particularly on the subject of global warming, he views it as a hoax invented by the Chinese, but states that there is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of ‘climate change,’. And, Trump’s desire to direct funding to current challenges like infrastructure, rather than future-oriented scientific research or missions, shows he has skeptical of the future, given he builds his campaign on the imaginary past. All of this has demonstrated Trump’s apparent inability to grasp the realities and complexities of major scientific and technology issues facing America and the world.

Speaking of Donald Trump’s policies, these are the antithesis of the tech industry but that seem to be resonating with larger portions of the disenfranchised middle class, including minorities. Renegotiating free trade will be damaging to businesses cost-effectively competing against others. Also, Trump has flip-flopped on the H1-B visa issue and attacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for getting foreign talents Silicon Valley has been relying on. On security, he would err on its side, weighing national security interests far above the sanctity of the U.S. tech industry for fears of terrorism. All of this have shown that Trump is campaigning on fear of new people and new ideas and a fundamental belief that America is weak and in decline; that is why more than 140 Silicon Valley leaders penned an open letter denouncing Trump as a disaster for innovation.

In the end, Donald Trump’s campaign and his resulting populist Trumpism will someday ignite a nuclear war he supports, and anti-technology social movements as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk warned last December. These, along with factional ferocities, street swarms, reflexive hostilities, fists flying, mobs and counter-mobs could potentially drive our technology level below where it’s possible, preventing humans from reaching milestones like landing an astronaut on Mars and other worlds in our solar system. Any individual attempting to smuggle, invent, possess, or develop science and technology became targets of hate crimes inflicted by politically legitimized criminals under the Trump administration.

We strongly denounce his mercurial comments about science and technology, and stand together to say that Donald Trump is Not Who We Are and cannot solve problems as he is the problem.